NO HEARING FOR COMMUNISTS

Evening Star, Issue 23498, 12 February 1940, Page 3

NO HEARING FOR COMMUNISTS

CROWD OVERWHELM "LEFT FRONTISTS " POLICE HANDLE SITUATION.WELL [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, February 11. In the face of organised, though obviously unofficial, opposition from about 100 soldiers' and sailors, an attempt by Communists and others to repeat their weekly anti-war meeting in Quay street this afternoon was frustrated. The only speaker who attempted to address the crowd of about 3,000 was overwhelmed in a rush in which a banner was torn to shreds, and calico strips from it were used by the soldiers to decorate their hats. Both tjie police and the soldiers suffered contusions in the rushes and melees that prevented the speeches. Most of the crowd was present to witness trouble rather. than to cause it, and as the Communist Front _ was overborne very early in the proceedings, excitement rather than bad feeling distinguished the rushes that were almost invariably aimless, ending as suddenly as they began. Indeed, in several spirited scrimmages, in which there appeared to be no “beg pardons,” police, soldiers, and sailors jested together as they struggled. These encounters always ended in cheers by the dishevelled soldiers and sailors for the police. As much by their good humour and jests as by their weighty and scientifi-cally-packed that always split any rush, the police restrained the crowds.